Jumba Jookiba

Dr. Jumba Jookiba is the creator of the 629 illegal genetic experiments, including Stitch. He is an overweight, mostly purple-skinned alien with dark pink skin on his chest, stomach, and under his arms. Jumba has a huge, mostly bald, ovalish head with three black hairs, a wide mouth, a round nose and four beady eyes. He speaks with a vague Russian accent, but also uses very poor grammar and refers to himself in the third person. He is from the planet Quelte Quan and his species is Kweltikwan. He has been called a mad/idiot scientist, but he prefers to be known as an evil genius, and is in fact surprisingly sociable and friendly outside of his work. He is voiced by David Ogden Stiers.

Contents

Personality

Jumba wishes to see his experiments' success and be recognized by others as the evil genius he believes himself to be. He is otherwise angered when called a failure, and would rather tinker with objects around him than become physically active, hence the large exterior. Even though he claims to be evil, Jumba's actions during Lilo & Stitch contradict this. Jumba is in fact very sociable and friendly to nearly everyone on the island.

Jumba appears as being good-humored, intelligent, and slightly insane. Originally, he appeared to be a little rough and crazy, but he is later revealed to be caring as evidenced by his actions towards Stitch and his decision to stay with Lilo and her family. Even after his supposed reformation, he still has a bit of a penchant for evil, creating new evil experiments and referring to himself as such, often bragging about it. He enjoys eating, to the extent of creating an experiment solely for making him meals, and he once won an eating contest on Earth.

Bio

Jumba observing Stitch

Jumba Jookiba graduated from Evil Genius University with Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel, his lab partner. Shortly afterward, it is said the two opened up a joke shop together. When Jumba became the Lead Scientist of Galaxy Defense Industries, the two began work on Jumba's experiments, 001 becoming known as Shrink (the headline reads: "Idiot Scientists Actually Create Something!"). The team-up went like this: Jumba created the experiments and Hämsterviel funded them with his shady business deals. For those 25 years of partnership, however, Hämsterviel did nothing but (as put by Jumba) "cheat Jumba, embarrass Jumba, steal from Jumba, and finally, fink on Jumba to Galactic Federation" for his illegal genetic experimentation.

Thus, he stood erect before the Galactic Federation, having been accused of creating illegal genetic experiments. He was incarcerated because of his forbidden genetic experiments, but later released and sent off to Earth with Agent Pleakley in order to recapture one of his creations, Experiment 626. He was later quietly left on Earth (likely to avoid becoming a nuisance elsewhere in the galaxy) and has become a part of Lilo's extended family.

Jumba's sense of technology is also a hobby; he has made modifications to the house, such as a vacuum-tube elevator in the hallway leading to Lilo and Stitch's room, added when the house was rebuilt at the end of Lilo & Stitch. In one episode, he completely updated the house, only to have his technology turn against him, thanks to Experiment 223 (Glitch), who was captured in Lilo's handheld game. He has also made many modifications to Lilo and Stitch's dune buggy to perfect it for catching his other experiments which landed on Earth not long after Jumba's arrival. He has also had a mean ex-wife, whom he is terrified of. In one episode, he mentions that a particular fish, which resembles a lamprey eel, reminds him of her "before face-lift".

In what could be either a coincidence or a subtle intention, Jumba made 626 experiments, and was stopped from finishing his final experiment (Stitch) before being completed (hence the recharging dilemma).

Three years after Jumba's experiments were scattered across Kauai, Hawaii, Lilo and Stitch had rounded up and reformed 624 experiments. Jumba was given the opportunity to return to his old laboratory by the Grand Councilwoman. At first, he didn't want to hurt Lilo's feelings by leaving, but she agreed to let him go, giving him an Elvis record to remember her by. However, Hämsterviel escaped prison with the help of the former Captain Gantu, who had been retired from his position forcibly by the Grand Councilwoman three years prior to these events, and held Jumba hostage in his own lab, forcing him to create a new experiment, which ends up being named Leroy. However, Jumba used the record Lilo gave him to program a shut-off switch for Leroy: if he hears the song "Aloha ʻOe", he will glitch and switch off (but won't die like Stitch would have as shown at the end of Stitch Has a Glitch). When asked what he'd like as a reward he decides to give up his laboratory and return to Earth to become part of Lilo's family once again.

Biology

Appearance

Jumba is a large obese alien with dull purple skin on his back side and pale pink skin on his front side, tan undertones, dark pink skin on his chest, stomach and under his arms. His head is huge, mostly bald, rather bulbous and oval and he has a large purple koala-like nose and wide mouth. His relatively small, floppy ears with pink insides seem to be on the sides of his neck. He has four eyes, two large eyes and two small eyes, all four of which have pale yellow sclera.

He seems to have three short hairs on the top of his head, and he has large blunt-edged fangs, a round stomach, thick limbs and four-fingered hands. His feet apparently lack toes. Jumba wears a yellow (sometimes light blue) Hawaiian shirt, blue shorts with white linings, and gray boots with light gray soles.

Because Jumba was imprisoned in Lilo & Stitch, he wears a prison jumpsuit covered in horizontal dark and light blue stripes.

Abilities

Jumba's greatest asset is his abnormally high IQ, hindered only by a few small and occasional lapses in memory. His penchant for creating numerous destructive, complex experiments and machinery is nearly unrivaled, and his creation 626 is proof of his genius, being nearly unbeatable, as well as one of the most formidable fighters in the galaxy. He has also completely memorized the number and technical info on every one of Stitch's "cousins" he created.

Jumba also has above average strength and durability, as seen in his confrontation with Stitch towards the end of Lilo & Stitch, where he is able to fight Stitch one-on-one reasonably well (a feat even the 20-foot-tall Captain Gantu is unable to do). Jumba's above average lifting capacity is demonstrated when he uses a comb device as a penetrating projectile. His astounding durability is demonstrated when he is repeatedly hit with various heavy objects thrown by 626 (including a Volkswagen Beetle), and at one point hurled through a wall, and only comes up a little shaken. Also, he, along with 626, survives being at the center of a plasma explosion powerful enough to destroy Lilo's house.

His grammar is rather poor, but it would seem that Jumba's species naturally has poor grammar with regards to English, according to Experiment 300's (Spooky's) impression of Jumba's ex-wife.

Prior to creating Experiment 177 (a.k.a "Clip"), Jumba had long, flowing locks of curly black hair. Since then, he has been bald with the exception of three long hairs which grow from the top of his head. He managed to get a full afro of hair but decided to go back to being bald, finding it more suitable for himself.

Jumba likes to dance and he is not afraid to bust a move every now and then.

Jumba has a habit of referring to himself in the third person. This habit was probably passed down to Stitch, since he has a tendency to refer to himself in third person as well.

During early development of the film, Stitch was conceived as an intergalactic gangster with a gang of three rather than a recently-created genetic monster. In that early version, Jumba was a former fourth member of Stitch's gang who was left behind during a bank heist and had been stewing in prison for years. Upon Stitch's escape, the Grand Councilwoman would then make the deal to release Jumba if he would go to Earth to capture his former boss.

In a deleted scene, Jumba is shown to have an insane side when he attacks Stitch at Lilo's house.

To be specific, the scene where Jumba attacks Stitch, resulting in the Pelekai residence accidentally being burned down, was actually going to have more violent scenes like Stitch actually using a chainsaw to attack Jumba, and Stitch setting the house on fire by biting apart a gas pipe and tricking Jumba into shooting it with his blaster. The final version of the same scene has everything violent edited out and replaced in favor of making the scene more slapstick-oriented (Jumba knocking the ceiling down with dishes instead of laser blasts, Jumba's "shuriken" being made of hairbrushes and a tube of toothpaste instead of knives and a pizza cutter, the entire chainsaw scene shortened), had more comedic scenes added in (exploding Scrump, Stitch catching Jumba's laser, Stitch yelling, "Blue Punch Buggy! No punch-back!" when hitting Jumba with Nani's VW, the Elvis Presley song "Hound Dog" playing in the background), and the house being destroyed by having Stitch stop up Jumba's blaster with a carrot and then having them both play "hot potato" with it until the blaster overloads and explodes.

A similar treatment was done to the climax where Jumba, Pleakley, Stitch and Nani fly through the sky to pursue Gantu after he accidentally captures Lilo as a result of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The alien species and even the spaceships in Lilo & Stitch were inspired by Hawaiian wildlife and marine creatures as well. In Jumba's case, he seems to be inspired by sea lions and their relatives.

In Lilo & Stitch, Jumba mentioned Stitch was "irresistibly drawn to large cities, where he will flood sewers, reverse street signs and steal everyone's left shoe". In storyboards/concepts during Jumba's trial, there were video feeds of Stitch attacking a peaceful alien planet called "Lytwoc", in which he flooded sewers, reversed street signs, and stole left shoes from several citizens of the planet.

Jumba states in "The Asteroid" that he finds chewing food rather annoying because on his home planet, nutrients are absorbed through the skin. However, at the end of the same episode, he admits that he enjoys pizza, and in "Holio", he mentions that he likes eating pastrami.

We learn in "The Asteroid" that Jumba had been banished from his home planet for evil genius research, but in "Sinker", he mentions about having given presents to his evil genius family back home (hinting that he may come from a family of evil geniuses), implying while he cannot go back to his home planet, he is allowed to send gifts there.